Retro Television Review: The American Short Story #15: The Sky Is Gray

Posted on September 13, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Saturdays, Lisa will be reviewing The American Short Story, which ran semi-regularly on PBS in 1974 to 1981. The entire show can be purchased on Prime and found on YouTube and Tubi.

This week, we have an adaptation of a 1963 short story.

Episode #15: The Sky Is Gray

(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired in 1980)

This adaptation of an Ernest Gaines short story takes place in Louisiana during the 1940s. James (James Bond III) is a young black child who lives on a farm. His father is overseas, serving in the Army during World War II. His mother (Olivia Cole) is a stern but loving woman who is trying to raise the sensitive James in a world where one often has to depend on their inner strength to survive. When James comes down with a toothache, he and his mother travel to a nearby town so he can see the dentist. From having to stand in the back of the bus to listening to a debate between a priest and a militant in the dentist’s office, it’s an eye-opening journey for James. When the white receptionist at the dentist’s office arbitrarily cancels James’s appointment and tells him and his mother to come back tomorrow, the two of them seek shelter. James discovers how strong his mother is when they’re harassed by a pimp (Reuben Collins). He also learns that there is unexpected kindness in the world when a white store owner invites him and his mother inside to give them shelter from the cold and windy day. During one trip to the dentist, James learns that the world is far more complicated than he originally knew.

This was an okay adaptation of Gaines’s acclaimed short story. Young James Bond III gave a good performance as James and the episode was full of scenes that visually captured the feel of being an outsider. That said, as was often the case with this series, the adaptation was so straight-forward that it didn’t really capture the nuance of Gaines’s writing. In the short story, Gaines put the reader right into James’s head. The adaptation doesn’t really do that. A heavy-handed musical score doesn’t help matters but, with all that in mind, this was still an effective coming-of-age tale.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 3.17 “The Afternoon Plane”

Posted on February 10, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week, Tubbs has an adventure!

Episode 3.17 “The Afternoon Plane”

(Dir by David Jackson, originally aired on February 20th, 1987)

While attending a New Age-y wedding with his latest girlfriend Alicia (Maria McDonald), Tubbs wins a vacation to a tropical island!

It’s about time something …. well, I was going to say something good but honestly, I guess we should just be happy that anything is happening to Tubbs at all. When this show started, Tubbs was the audience surrogate. He was the one who came down to Miami and learned about the drug scene. We saw Miami through his eyes. But, by the time the third season rolled around, it was pretty clear that Miami Vice hard largely become the Crockett show. Don Johnson was the star and Philip Michael Thomas often seemed like a supporting character. Tubbs may have been cooler than Switek but, often times, both of them took a backseat to Crockett. This week, however, Tubbs finally get his own episode. Crockett shows up for a few minutes at the start of the episode and that’s it. This is the Tubbs show!

Of course, it turns out that the vacation does not go the way that Tubbs was expecting. He runs into a drug dealer named Leon Wolf (Vincent D’Onofrio, making his television acting debut), someone who Tubbs previously put in jail. Tubbs soon discovers that his old enemies, the Calderone family, are on the Island and they’re looking forward to getting their revenge on Tubbs. Tubbs, of course, has no legal jurisdiction on the island and the local police certainly aren’t going to help him out. In fact, many people on the island resent Tubbs because they blame America’s war on drugs for their poverty. Drug smuggling is big business and it provides an income to a lot of people who would starve otherwise.

Orlando Calderone (John Leguizamo) is coming on the next afternoon plane and no one is willing to defy Orlando by helping Tubbs get off the island. The episode becomes a Caribbean High Noon, with the clock ticking down and no one willing to stand up and help the endangered law man. There are some on the island who want to fight back and drive away the Calderones. But no one is willing to take the chance.

It would have been a lot more compelling if Orlando had been played by someone other than John Leguizamo, who is just as cartoonishly unconvincing here as he was the first time that he appeared on the show. I know that Miami Vice was early in Leguizamo’s career but his performance here is so unconvincing that it really does make the Calderones just seem like a bunch of low-level punks instead of a feared criminal syndicate. The final gun battle between Tubbs and the Calderones is handled well-enough but it’s never quite as compelling as it would be if Orlando Calderone was actually an intimidating villain. In typical Miami Vice fashion, Alicia is seriously wounded in the battle. It pays not to get involved with either Tubbs or Crockett.

This episode was a slight change of pace. Apparently, everyone but Philip Michael Thomas got to take some time off during filming and, as a result, Thomas gets to show his own unique style as Rico Tubbs. Still, this episode was never as compelling as it needed to be. Hopefully, we are now done with the Calderones.

Horror On TV: Kolchak: The Night Stalker 1.20 “The Sentry” (dir by Seymour Robbie)

Posted on October 30, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight on Kolchak….

There’s something on the loose underneath Chicago! Could it be a …. killer lizard!? Kolchak’s on the story!

Sadly, all good things must come to an end and this was the final episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Darren McGavin, of course, would later go on to epitomize the ideal middle American father when he played The Old Man in A Christmas Story.

This finale originally aired on March 28th, 1975.

I hope you have enjoyed this October’s trip down Kolchak Lane!

A Mardi Gras Film Review: Mardi Gras For The Devil (dir by David A. Prior)

Posted on February 10, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

A maniac is holding New Orleans hostage! He’s committed a series of savage, Satanically-influenced homicides and the police cannot seem to even slow him down! The entire city is terrified!

Well, actually … New Orleans doesn’t seem to be scared at all. In fact, no one in this movie seems to be all that disturbed by all of the brutal murders that are happening around them. Some people would probably say that’s because this film takes place during Mardi Gras and everyone’s too drunk to notice. Why worry about being murdered when all you have to do to get a bunch of cheap beads is flash a boob? Add to that, this is New Orleans. New Orleans is a very forgiving city.

Anyway, regardless of whether people care or not, there’s a Satanic murderer prowling through the city. Who is the killer? Could he possibly be that guy who always dresses in black, who has a perfectly trimmed beard, and who is always throwing back his head and laughing before doing something evil? The guy’s name is Bishop and he’s played by everyone’s favorite Canadian character actor, Michael Ironside. As far as Michael Ironside villains are concerned, Bishop is pretty frightening though he’s nowhere near as a frightening as Darryl Revok. I mean, he does a lot of evil stuff but he doesn’t actually make anyone’s head explode.

Detective Mike Turner (Robert Davi) is obsessed with stopping Bishop. Unfortunately, Detective Turner doesn’t appear to be very good at his job. I mean, everyone he knows he keeps getting seriously injured. His first partner dies. His second partner gets run over by a bus. His ex-wife (Lesley-Anne Down) ends up trapped in a pool. His girlfriend (Lydie Denier) ends up getting tied up in a barn while a time bomb ticks down across from her. Fortunately, a few of these people do manage to survive. Turner may not be a very good cop but, fortunately, Bishop isn’t that good of a serial killer.

It soon becomes apparent that Bishop has a motive for all of his murders, one that goes beyond the usual serial killer weirdness. It turns out that Bishop’s murders are actually sacrifices and he has given his soul to Satan. Giving your soul to the devil apparently gives you the power to do whatever the script needs you to do at any particular moment in the movie. Fortunately, it also leaves you with a weakness that can be exploited whenever the movie decides to come to an end.

Am I saying that Mardi Gras For the Devil makes no sense? I most definitely am! However, that’s actually the film’s charm. The film was made with so little concern for continuity and narrative logic that it plays out like a fever dream. The cast is surprisingly good for a film like this, which means that everyone delivers the strangest of lines with the utmost sincerity. Michael Ironside plays his role without a hint of subtlety, which is exactly the type of bad guy that a film like this requires. Meanwhile, Robert Davi brings a weary cynicism to his role. You can just hear him thinking, “Satanic serial killers? I’m too old for this shit.” Combine that with a fiery ending that doesn’t even try to make sense and you have a movie that, perhaps through no intention of the film’s director, manages to create and sustain a very surreal atmosphere. The film may not be any good but it’s hard to look away from.

Though the film takes place at Mardi Gras and was released, in some countries, as both Mardi Gras For The Devil and Mardi Gras Nightmare, it actually has very little do with Mardi Gras. The opening scenes were shot during a Mardi Gras parade but that’s about it. The film was also released under the title Night Trap, which is a woefully generic title. You can find the movie on YouTube.

That’s Blaxploitation! 10: HELL UP IN HARLEM (AIP 1973)

Posted on July 3, 2017 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

I’ve covered producer/writer/director Larry Cohen’s marvelously manic work in the horror genre ( IT’S ALIVE! , GOD TOLD ME TO ), but did you know the low-budget auteur also contributed some solid entries to the Blaxploitation field? Cohen’s gangster epic BLACK CAESAR starred Fred “The Hammer” Williamson and was such a smash a sequel was rushed into production and released ten months later. HELL UP IN HARLEM picks up right where the original left off, as ‘Black Caesar’ Tommy Gibbs is set up by corrupt DA DiAngelo and shot on the streets of New York City. Tommy has possession of some ledgers with the names of all the crooked politicians and cops on his payroll, and DiAngelo and his Mafioso friends want to put him out of circulation for good. Escaping via a wild taxi ride, Tommy is back in business and out for revenge.